


The Disorient Express

by screamlet



Category: Political Animals
Genre: Escape, Fluff, Gen, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 06:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamlet/pseuds/screamlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>T.J. thinks he'll blame youth-obsessed Western culture for making him ashamed to admit that his grandmother is his best friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Disorient Express

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lanyon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/gifts).



> Happy Christmas, lovely. Hope you like. <3

T.J. thinks he'll blame youth-obsessed Western culture for making him ashamed to admit that his grandmother is his best friend.

Two months on, Doug and Anne are still married and the President is still dead. The guilt and good will from T.J.’s last hospital stay are wearing off, day by interminable day, but no one seems to notice except Margaret, who keeps her distance for two days before she comes to talk to him.

“So,” she says as she sits next to him on his bed. He was totally reading (like, _a book_ ) and he can tell from her tone that this will be a Serious Conversation and he’s just about fucking had it with Serious Conversations. “Little history lesson for you, don’t stop me if you’ve heard it.”

He grunts and flips his book onto his lap to keep his place.

“Way back in the days before Kardashians and modern sewage systems,” she says, “Young men came of age, packed their bags, a tutor, and a butler, and headed off to find the world. They called it the Grand Tour. I bet lots of your and Dougie’s douchebag friends still take part in this ritual, except maybe they now skip from daddy-funded internship to internship until they come back here for a cushy law job and a congressional seat.”

She pauses like she wants an answer, so T.J. nods and shrugs. “A few guys, yeah. Now they call them Fulbright and Rhodes scholarships.”

“God, I hate everything,” Margaret sighs. “Anyway. You’ve been here, half-dead and behaving yourself, for long enough. I think we should take a trip, just the two of us. I want to take you on a grand tour.”

“Ugh, Nana,” T.J. groans, “We already went on one, like, every summer we were in the White House, remember? Europe is state dinners and churches and what the fuck is Venice, honestly? It needs to decide if it sinks or swims.”

Margaret shrugs and says, quieter than before, “Don’t know if you noticed, _brat_ , but you’re not in the White House anymore.”

“Yeah but-”

“No _yeah but_. I want to get out of here and I want you come with me. I want to spend our money on hotels and shows and sightseeing, and I want to do it with _you_ since you’ve got nothing else going on, have you?”

“...not particularly.”

“Good. So it’s settled.”

“What about Doug?” T.J. asks.

“What about Doug,” Margaret repeats to herself. “That’s maybe the first time anyone in this family’s asked, _what about Doug_.”

*

“Uh, _NO?_ ” Doug half-shrieks. “I’m _married_ , I don’t know if you guys remember that oh wait yes you do because you crashed my elopment not that I’m bitter about that or anything but just as a reminder because you guys clearly forgot _I’m married_ and I can’t just-”

“I want to go,” Anne says.

“Good girl,” Margaret says.

“I know you guys don’t think of the family ever,” Doug says. He should have been an actor, T.J. thinks, as Doug kneels in front of him and Margaret, taking her hands to plead with her, because he’s obviously never met their grandmother. Who _could_ and then think that she could be swayed by kneeling and hand-clasping?

“Excuse you,” Margaret snaps. “I think if anyone thinks of this family before ourselves, it’s me and T.J. We think of The Family _constantly_ , and frankly I believe we think about it too damn much as it is. It’s time for us to think of ourselves, and the only way to do that is to get the hell out of here.”

 _“Yeah_ ,” Doug protests, “But all this stuff with Mom and Collier, the next election- I can’t just-”

“I think you have to,” Margaret says. “I don’t know how to break this to you, Dougie, since Elaine clearly hasn’t broken it to you already, but no one in this town will ever trust you again.”

“It’s D.C., Nana, no one trusts anyone ever.”

“Let me put it another way,” Margaret replies. “No one has to _pretend_ to trust you ever again. You’re useless to Elaine and no one knows that better _than Elaine_.”

She rests her hand on Doug’s cheek, and his proud, defiant kneel crumples suddenly. T.J. always thought that was the worst part of his brother, that huge stupid flaw that would get him in trouble one day: he always believed his own bullshit.

“Anyway, I didn’t think you’d come either, but T.J. wanted me to ask, so I’m asking,” Margaret huffs.

T.J. watches Doug melt a little. He finally says, “We’ll think about it.”

T.J. grins.

*

“You kids hide out here for a while,” Margaret says one night. “I’m goin’ to war. Remember me well, kiddos, okay?”

Just like that, T.J. and Doug are kids again, hiding out in one of their bedrooms of the White House while their mom yells up a storm over one fucking thing or another.

This time, Doug and Anne are sitting against the door of T.J.’s room like a human barricade while T.J. lies face down on his bed, face turned so he can talk to them, if need be.

“Remember when we wanted to start dating?” Doug asks while Elaine goes off on a particularly long rant that Margaret can only interrupt in a couple of places.

“Which one of you was it?” Anne asks, teasingly.

“Oh, T.J., of course,” Doug replies.

“Becky Hernandez,” T.J. says. “Seventh grade, I think. I had been watching _Saved by the Bell_ and was convinced that if I asked a girl to the dance, we had to go to dinner first or it wasn’t a real date-”

“So Mom-” Doug starts laughing and can’t stop, “She- she has a _background_ check done on T.J.’s date and her whole family before this little 12-year-old girl gets to share T.J.’s Secret Service protection for a night.”

“But all that was after the fight about whether we were too young to date _at all_ ,” T.J. adds. “So it was her, Dad, Nana, our therapist, the Chief of Staff, whoever that jackoff press secretary was at the time- I think the VP made an appearance at one point to point out that we couldn’t be seen shopping for condoms. Like. _Ever_.”

“I hope Mom doesn’t become someone’s VP,” Doug says. “Something about being the VP makes you an asshole automatically. Dad never had a good one.”

“Ugh, no, go back to the part where you were cute little kids going on dates to school dances,” Anne whines.

“Yeah, seriously, Dougie,” T.J. laughs.

They go quiet, the three of them, and listen carefully because the fight might be over sooner than they any fight ever before.

“I don’t give a god _damn_ about the numbers,” Margaret says. “You sell it any way you want, but me and my grandchildren are getting the hell out of this _place_ for a change. You think people will talk? They _always_ talk, so we might as well-”

“Oh here it comes,” T.J. groans.

“Let’s give them something to talk about,” Doug whines.

Anne laughs too loudly and Doug pulls her in against his shoulder, hiding his laughter, too.

Elaine doesn’t yell back. T.J. raises a fist in the air. It’s on.

*

“Ground rules,” Margaret warns T.J. on the plane. “Doug and Anne do whatever they want, whenever they want, because this is _our trip_ and they’re just along for the ride.”

“Okay,” T.J. says. He rolls his eyes because it’s likely that one of his therapists was right: maybe people do freeze their emotional development when they start drinking, and maybe he’s permanently 13. It’s growth, though, as every therapist calls it, when he listens to this, braces himself, and doesn’t snap at Nana or shut down completely.

Suddenly, though, he asks, “Nana, are you dying or something? Why this trip? Why now?”

And _she_ looks like she wants to snap at him, but she takes a drink instead. “Of course I’m dying,” she says. “Aren’t we all?”

“Ugh, Nana, you know what I-”

“I know what you meant and no, I’m not _dying_ , not any faster than usual though make no mistake: this is what the advanced track looks like. You were on the fast track, but this is... steadily downhill.” She swishes her drink around a little, mixing the booze and melted ice. “Not any faster than usual.”

He doesn’t believe her; she doesn’t care.

“Everything I told your mother was true, honey,” Margaret tells T.J. a moment later. “I think we need to get out of that place. Your mom and dad- they’re made for each other, and they’re _made_ for politics. They _thrive_ on that toxic air and think the rest of us can, too.”

It’s not anything T.J. hasn’t known since he was old enough to know _anything_ about his parents and the lives they had chosen for themselves, for him and Doug.

“Any other ground rules?” T.J. asks.

She starts ticking the rules off on her fingers, indicating which are hers and which are Elaine’s, as if he couldn’t tell: _don’t bring guys back_ , _don’t create an international incident, don’t disappear without telling someone where you are, text if you’ll be later than 1 AM, don’t comment on national affairs, always identify yourself as a private citizen unless you’ve caused an international incident and then milk the Hammond thing for all you’re worth_ , the list honestly goes on until it starts to dawn around the plane and T.J. tosses Margaret’s drink out.

She’s asleep next to him and when he glances at her, he hopes that his silence on everything, his agreeing to all her terms as well as his mom’s, conveys... everything. That he’s- that dying for the second time was like a hard reset.

No, not quite: dying for the second time, his brother getting married, attending the president’s state funeral, his mother running for office again, all the _shit_ they’ve been through- he’s done with it. He’s ready for something else.

*

In London, T.J.’s sickeningly gratified to see someone else have a Hammond freak-out moment. It’s Anne, incredibly enough, and Doug has his arm around her, doing an awful job of reassuring her about _anything_.

“Yes, okay, technically you’re being presented to some royals,” Doug says to her as they’re driving to Kensington Palace. “But they’re really _cool_ royals.”

“They’re _cool_? What does that even _mean_?” Anne asks.

“...they’re people, people can be cool! I mean, just don’t think of them as _royals_ , you know? It’s hard to, anyway, considering the problematic nature of a 21st century monarchy-”

T.J. raises his eyebrows, but he thinks she takes it pretty well.

“Don’t tell anyone,” T.J. says. He leans across the car to hold Anne’s hand and says, “Harry broke Theodore Roosevelt’s shaving mirror the _one time_ they visited us. You’re gonna be fine.”

*

In Paris, they’ve been invited to a hoity toity not-quite state dinner- some socialite/former politician’s birthday dinner, one of these high-stress places where the line between celebrity and politician is all but erased.

It’s more Doug and Anne’s thing, but Doug wrangles an invite for T.J. anyway.

Margaret doesn’t quite _insist_ that T.J. go, since keeping his autonomy- that’s part of the rules, but she does drop a hint or two that he’s done nothing but mope in cemeteries since they got to Paris and maybe flirting with a French homo or three would cheer him up.

Yeah, all right, T.J. kind of agrees with that logic, but he has dinner on his own and shows up late in the evening during drinks and dessert. He makes a beeline for Doug and Anne, and he thinks he does a great job of being Private Citizen Hammond, blending in with the people around him since no one seems to be bothering Doug.

Actually, no one seems to be talking to Doug or Anne... at all.

“This may have been a bad idea,” Doug whispers to T.J. when he arrives. “Our media has... kind of been horrible about the fact that Garcetti was flying to _France_ when the plane crashed, and... let’s just say that they think we’re better targets than Garcetti’s little kids.”

“Are you fucking kidding,” T.J. sighs. “Goddammit, I told Nana this was bullshit.”

“I mean, dinner was great-”

T.J. rolls his eyes and even Anne sighs, “Jesus Christ, Doug.”

It escalates when people notice T.J. standing with Doug. See, Dougie’s a beautiful guy, but he’s a behind the scenes guy and hasn’t been more than his mom’s literal shadow since her campaign and since they were all in the White House as teenagers. T.J., on the other hand, has had photos of him sold to every tabloid in the Western world. People know his sunken eyes and slouchy leather jacket look _anywhere_ there’s a _Star_ or _People_ magazine sold.

“Good of Mrs. Hammond to send her worthless children overseas, where they can’t cause any trouble,” someone comments _really loudly_ near them. Insanely enough, there’s some laughter because-

“Oh, they think we don’t speak French,” T.J. sighs. “Even I know enough French to understand that.”

On a good night, Doug would have rested a hand on T.J.’s shoulder and sighed, held him back from throwing a punch, let him rush to the restroom later to “calm down” with all the coke he had on him, and T.J. would have woken up the next morning, totally indifferent to the world.

Instead, T.J. sees the instant Doug panics, tenses up, and blurts out in French, “How could you say that when we have a concert pianist right here?”

Unfortunately, T.J. will have to break his promises to his mom and Nana when he kills Dougie tonight.

“Oh really?” that same asshole asks them. “Yet I’ve been to all of your great concert halls, and never once heard your pianist. Where have you played?”

T.J. takes over because, know what? Fuck it. How often does someone confront him like this _and_ give him the chance to be a pure American asshole? _Completely sober_ , even.

“Little place called _The White House_ ,” T.J. snaps in his sharpest, most Barrish tones as he heads over to the piano by the bar. “Maybe you’ve heard of it.”

When he wakes up the next morning, he discovers his web presence has grown beyond a sparse page on his mother’s election site and a couple of Grindr profiles. Suddenly, the whole confrontation and his impromptu concert by the bar are all over the internet, remixed a couple of hundred times while he slept. Too many people have sent Dougie shots of him and T.J. (but mostly just T.J.) in front of weeping bald eagles and American flags and _THE WHITE HOUSE- MAYBE YOU’VE HEARD OF IT?_ emblazoned across the bottom.

His mother’s voicemail sounds curt and gets to the point: _WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT CAUSING AN INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT? AND IN FRANCE? I’ll be speaking to your grandmother about this._

His father’s voicemail makes it all worth it: _So you’ll play for a bunch of snotty frog-suckers but not YOUR OWN FATHER_ \- it goes on like that for a while, his accent mostly incomprehensible at some points, and yeah, that kind of public-approved _fuck you_ , claiming himself back on his own fucking terms, is so worth it.

Margaret comes in around noon and says, “We’re heading to Zurich a little sooner than we thought, Beethoven, so get your shit together.”

T.J. smiles, though, the most genuine smile he thinks he’s managed in a long, long time.

*

In Zurich, Doug and Anne are still so exhilarated by Paris that they really want to live it up (since they didn’t quite _get to_ in Paris). They sit at the coffee table in the middle of the suite’s living room and spread out maps, nightlife guides, tablets where Dougie searches furiously for pitfalls and perks at every place they consider.

T.J. lies across an armchair and listens to them argue. The second he closes his eyes, Margaret asks him, “What do you want to do, T.J.?”

“Uh, of course he’s coming with us,” Doug says.

“I don’t think so,” T.J. replies. “You guys go out on your own, I’ll- I don’t know, I think I’ll explore.”

He doesn’t hear or see Margaret’s disapproval, but he feels it. He straightens up a little and looks at her. “Come with me,” he says. “You, me and the Secret Service.”

“You better not ditch me somewhere, Moonshine,” Margaret warns T.J. “Secret Service has a priority to cover _you_ and if you ditch me, I might just find the red light district and never leave.”

“Nana, come on,” Doug whines as he hides under the table.

“Aww, come back, Moonpie,” Anne laughs as she pulls him up by the collar.

“Nooo, who told you about those nicknames,” Doug cries. “Now you don’t think I’m cool anymore.”

They all laugh at Doug, who doesn’t want to see what’s so funny about him ever being cool.

“So why didn’t you want to go clubbing tonight?” Margaret asks T.J. while they’re walking along some city center later that night. “I hear Switzerland’s good for that sort of thing. Or Zurich. If I were your age- if I were _you_ \- I would be all over that. There’s no need to put on an angel face for me, not if you’re simmering behind it and you’ll blow up into coke fever ten minutes from now.”

“I’m not- no, that’s not it,” T.J. protests. “I- I did want to, a little, I guess, but then Dougie just _assumed_ I was going. So. I’m skipping out.”

“Ooh, that’ll teach Dougie... absolutely nothing,” Margaret says.

“Nana,” T.J. sighs. He puts an arm around her shoulders and smiles when she pats his hand. “I  know they’re our family, and I know- I mean, I _hate_ that they think they know everything about me. Or that because I do something once, or _am_ something once, that’s what I’ll always be.” He looks at her and half-smiles as he says, “For living on the pulse of the nation, none of them are good at _rolling with it_ when it comes to matters on a less-than-national scale.”

“Tell me about it,” she replies.

“I just want to be my own person- that so much to ask? Just for a little while?”

“Jesus Christ, that shrink was right about you being a 15-year-old boy.”

“Jeez, Nana, I’m trying to _bare my soul_ to you,” he laughs, while not correcting her that the therapist actually said 13.

“Well, bare away, but you better invest in a diary or something for all the terrible poetry that’s going to come out of this life-changing revelation. Maybe you’ll start getting acne again as the sadness tries to explode out of your pores.”

She throws off the arm he rested on her shoulders, but that’s not a rebuff. Margaret holds his hand and links her arm with his: silent encouragement to go on, if he wants to, and she’ll put it into perspective, or just listen.

He’s good for now, though, and she’s fine with that, too.

*

Winter’s coming across Europe, so they save Italy for last. Over the next two months, they hit Munich, Vienna, Prague, Berlin, and everyone wants to go back west to Amsterdam, Cologne, Frankfurt, but T.J. wants to go north and east: Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Moscow. All the places their family didn’t go while they were traveling during the White House years, the places his father went and brushed off because someone served him a pizza with banana and curry on it (“ _WE’RE COMING FOR YOU, SWEDEN, AND YOUR PIZZA_ ,” Bud had yelled when he got home).

Margaret says, “Well, let’s give something a test run. It’s cold as hell up there, so if you hate it, come find us. And you don’t _have_ to call me every night, but if you feel like rubbing in how much better Scandinavia is than Amsterdam, then feel free.”

“I’ll name a fjord after you,” T.J. promises.

“What did Mom say about international incidents!”

“Dougie, are you becoming _less fun_ on this trip, or is it just me?” Margaret asks. “Good thing we’re going to Amsterdam.”

“Actually, they-”

“See, it’s not just me,” T.J. says. “Dougie is the biggest buzzkill on the fucking planet. It’s a good thing you’re not coming with me, or I’d drown you in a fjord.”

“Stop picking on Moonpie,” Anne says so Doug squirms and despairs more. “He can’t help it if he doesn’t understand the _vacation_ concept.”

Anne drapes herself over Doug’s shoulders and kisses his cheek. T.J. wonders if their grandmother has given Doug a third of the pep talks and heart-to-hearts she’s given T.J. They both fucked up pretty badly- _really_ badly- and Doug didn’t actually almost die like T.J. did, but career suicide? When Dougie _is_ his career and honestly doesn’t see a line between who he is and what he does? Jesus, they might need time away from him and his baggage as much as he needs time from _them_ and _their_ baggage.

It’s not his place, though. He can’t help- frankly, maybe none of them can, but Nana was right. Getting them the fuck away from the city, politics, lying and liars- it’ll help, it really will, and they may not have answers for Dougie, but he’s always been the smarter one of the two of them. If they give him some twigs and flint, he’ll make a fire. Or he’ll roll his eyes and whip out the lighter he stole out of T.J.’s pack when T.J. was making eyes at one of the other guys in their scout troop. T.J.’s always been a quick study, but Doug- he has to make it.

*

They’re taking separate trains out of Berlin and T.J. comes to the station early to see them off.

“You could always write, you know,” T.J. says as they hug it out. Doug laughs. “Your speeches for Mom are always so melodramatic- I think you’d make a good author of airport thrillers, the big sellers that never get made into movies. A series about an action hero kind of president who’s got to give a big speech to rally the troops before fighting terrorists or aliens or Alan Rickman.”

“I don’t know if that’s the best or worst vote of confidence I’ve ever heard,” Doug says, laughing again. T.J. remembers it took him until Vienna to stop laughing with that hysterical edge in his voice, like he was about to shatter in ten thousand pieces and never stop crying. “And you?” Doug asks. “What’s in Sweden? Are we missing out on something?”

“Man, I don’t know yet,” T.J. laughs. “But I’ll let you know, and _let Nana take care of you_. Five whole minutes. Just let her. Anne, too. Let Nana take care of Anne. It’s weird, but I don’t think Nana’s herself unless she’s taking care of someone.”

“Jesus, you’re slow,” Doug says. “You just noticed that?”

“Shut up,” T.J. laughs. “You’re the one who’s all-”

“Oh right I’m all-”

They scuffle by the train and almost knock over someone’s luggage, a pair of 30-year-old men ruining each other’s hair and grinning before T.J. shoves Doug towards the front of a car and watches him get inside. Anne rolls her eyes and kisses T.J.’s cheek. He clings to her a little longer than she expected, and she promises to text him.

“You,” Margaret says when she’s the last one who has to get on the train.

“Nana, I’ll be fine,” T.J. says.

“I hope so,” she says. “Don’t stay too long up there, okay? Italy’s waiting. Don’t fall in love with some mustache in Russia and go full-blown Karenina, all right?”

“That’s... hilarious and morbid, but okay, I’ll try to avoid falling into a Tolstoy novel. And you-”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll take care of myself, you little shit,” she replies. “And Anne and Dougie.”

“Don’t let them see too many museums,” T.J. warns.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

They hug and kiss and the family heads out. T.J. watches the train go and thinks about what he should do with himself before his train comes in. 


End file.
